Sometimes marketing can be quite clever or creative and can demonstrate a deep understanding of the product and the audience to which it may appeal. Quite often though, all it does is demonstrate that out-of-touch executives will pay just about anything if you manage to convince them it's cool.

I don't blame marketing companies for that, since business is often about selling total crap to whomever will buy it. Instead I blame the companies who would agree to pay for and put their name on such complete crap. In this case I blame Schick.

I'm talking about the TV advertisement in which the old scientist with a thick accent runs a few social tests at the Schick Shave Lab to see if the new Schick Quattro Titanium really is... what the fuck does he say there?

And that's the problem right there, nobody has a clue what he's saying. The entire sales pitch rests on this one line in the script which is unintelligible to the majority of the target market.

Without the requisite keywords it took quite a bit of googling to work out that he in fact says "...if it's really off the hizzy" and even this discovery was due to another literate person wondering what the hell was being said. OK, so now I know what he says, but what does it mean? Does anyone old enough to shave actually have a clue what 'off the hizzy' means? Sure it's easy to guess, but if we have to guess what it means, then was it really a good idea to get a geriatric lisper with a thick accent to garble the line?

So 'off the hizzy' translates roughly to 'is really good' and perhaps I'd have been more familiar with that if my Calvin Kleins were showing above my super-baggy pants which I have to hold up with my left hand while stealing some kid's Nikes with my right. Perhaps I'd have known that if my entire plan for the week was to spraypaint a marijuana leaf on my skateboard, but that isn't me. In fact, that isn't really most of the audience at all.

I'm 31. I could stand to shave more often. If Schick wants my business they're going to have to do a lot better than that.

You know, getting old people to use (American) street slang isn't really as cool or funny as it might seem at first. Off the hizzy, fo shizzle.

During his visit to Australia for APEC 2007, President George W Bush and Prime Minister John Howard brokered what has been described as a monumental defence deal.  As a result, the United States will be making certain classified technologies available to Australia as a mark of our continuing close relationship.

In other words, they're going to graciously allow us to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for weapons and tactical equipment which we'll then use to fight whichever wars they want us to.

I'm thrilled that we're going to be allowed the privilege of spending millions on the ongoing maintenance of the world's most advanced equipment which for some reason still can't quite manage to help American soldiers work out who the friendlies are.  I'm comforted to know that should Papua New Guinea decide to invade, we'll be adequately prepared to defend ourselves.

Hearing this news today really bolstered my patriotism.  It's so great to be part of a nation which taxes its citizens beyond all reasonable bounds so that it can help the struggling United States recoup their military R&D costs.

I completely understand Joe Inventor using a light bulb to test his new capacitance switching mechanism, but thats where the marriage between light bulb and touch switch should have ended.

In the real world, touch lamps are worse than useless. The problem isn't the touch sensitivity technology really, it's the choice to implement a 3-stage dimming process. Now, instead of flicking a switch to turn your light on and off, you have to tap the fucking thing repeatedly to achieve the same result... and far be it from us to use such stone-age methods of setting our desired brightness as, lets say, inserting a bulb of suitable wattage.

Certainly it's feasible that someone out there appreciates this dimming function, but then why make it work the wrong way around? It doesn't make any sense for a bedside lamp to start off dim and increase in brightness the more you touch it. After quite some time (hopefully) of reading your book or fondling your loved one with your stupid bloody touch lamp set to 'mood light', to switch it off you have to tap it up to 'omg hangover' and then again to 'retina searing' before finally punching the thing off your partner's nightstand (because you wouldn't be stupid enough to own one of these things, I hope).

It seems clear to me that even the inventors of these lamps didn't use them, because if they did, they'd soon realise just how stupid they are. They'd be a little less annoying if the dimming function were reversed thereby following your natural descent into sleep, but I think they're ultimately best left in the 70s where they belong.

American television strikes a new low this morning, when ABC’s infotainment program Good Morning America legitimises the selfish ramblings of a stupid old British man attempting to promote a future novel.

Peter Houghton has been living with a Jarvik 2000 cardiac implant for seven years, and now claims that the device which augments his heart has robbed him of the ability to emote. He says that while being intellectually aware of the love he feels for his family, he is unable to bond with them in a meaningful way. I’m sure his two grandkids just love hearing that.

[they] are gorgeous little boys, but when you come down to it, they’re not going to remember you very much. So automatically you sort of think, there isn’t anything I can do about this. Not going to get too hurt about it. You give them hugs and the usual things. You just don’t feel — they’re not part of my life, you know what I mean?

The producers of Good Morning America dubiously legitimise this trash by labeling the story ‘a GMA medical mystery - the real Tin Man’, complete with snippets of the Wizard of Oz and some pseudoscience attempting to justify the airtime they’ve given this arsehole.

At the end of the story, almost as an acknowledgement of journalistic idiocy, they mention that Peter is writing a science fiction novel. Presumably it will read like an annual report given Peter’s lack of ‘heart’.

Though GMA is by far the worst offender, they’re not the only ones. The story was reported by the Washington Post amongst a number of other supposedly reputable news outlets. To my mind the only story here is that people are taking this so seriously. Luckily by the time GMA aired here someone far more balanced and reasonable than the Washington Post (can you believe I wrote that and meant it?) had already blogged about it. Yay for the Internet.

You can read more about Peter’s remarkable plight on the Jarvik Heart website. The irony of all this is that his case is quite fascinating, while the man himself is nothing more than an opportunistic old codger.

Hello universe.

My previous blogging activities were rudely interrupted by life.  This seems to happen every couple of years, and often results in dramatic personal growth which has disastrous consequences to my Internet leisure time.

I don't think I'll ever be completely settled, but I'm certainly much more in the mood to write now, so I'm thrusting myself upon the 'intarweb' once more. I hope those kind Internet-souls inconvenienced by my abrupt departure will forgive my disappearance and embrace my return as I have.

To everyone else: Welcome.

Please note, this post marks the resurrection of this site, any posts before this are backdated backups.